Pixie Dust & Premonitions
by Kemma Lee
Summary: Mary Alice Brandon. Shunned, ignored and sent away by the only ones she had left to believe in. This is her journey to finding the one place she ever truly belonged. Companion fic to Jasper's story, "About A Soldier."
1. Different

Pixie Dust & Premonitions

Part 1/10

_**Different**_

The first time it happens, she's seven years old. Her little sister, Cynthia, is playing in the garden while she sits on the porch with a half-finished doodle in her lap. One minute she's watching the girl chase a lemon-yellow butterfly, and the next she's standing in on the side of a dark street, rain pouring all around her.

Only she isn't wet.

The edges of her vision are fuzzy, and it seems to her that she's looking through smudged glass. She sees herself in a bland blue dress – the only thing they can afford – between her mother and her father. Her cousin and her sister skip merrily in front of them.

She sees the fancy black car, and it's tires squealing and spinning out of control. She sees her cousin lying on the concrete.

When she's back in the garden again, with the sun beaming down on her, she races inside the house. When she tells her mother, she gets laughed at and called silly.

Her cousin dies three days later. The man simply couldn't control the car.

When she's eight, and her sister is six, they move to a bigger house that her father, Jack, buys with the advance he gets at work. She has her own room now. Their first few weeks in this new house are uneventful.

One Sunday morning before church, breakfast time changes everything. Her mother is running around the kitchen gathering food items, and talking to her father about the morning's news and the neighbor's gossip.

"Mrs. Brown down the street thinks her daughter, Natalie, is pregnant."

Her father shakes his head. He isn't interested, but he let's his wife talk on.

"Now she has to get married, as if they can even afford a wedding. The child's father isn't worth a—"

"Mommy, you're going to burn the bacon."

"Hush, Mary Alice. I'm talking. Anyway, that girl needs to change her ways. If any of my children –"

"_Mommy, _you're going to _burn_ the bacon."

Her mother plops a piece of toast down on each of the four plates at the table. "The bacon's not even on the stove yet. Like I was saying, if any of your girls _ever_ even _think_ of pulling of a stunt like that, I'll… well, I don't know what I'll do."

Alice sighs and rubs at her forehead as she hears the sizzle of the bacon in the grease. Why does no one ever listen to her?

"Mommy—"

"I really do love this house, Jack. I'm glad you bought it."

"Of course, dear. …Cynthia, don't eat the napkin."

"Mommy!"

"I don't know why she does that, she's old enough to – _oh!_" Her mother swears and covers her mouth. "Sorry."

"What did you do, Mary?"

"…I burned the bacon."

Alice shifts uncomfortably under the eyes of her parents. "…I told you."

* * *

Two days before her fifteenth birthday, she's walking through a field with her best friend, Lily. She pretends to listen while Lily talks about "the boy down the street" and how she "thinks he smiled at her," but she isn't. Not really.

"Alice, you're awfully quiet."

She pushes a strand of her long, dark hair off her forehead. "I'm sorry, Lily. You like him, right? You should say something."

Lily stops walking. "What's with you? You've started daydreaming more often and… it wasn't so bad before, when we were younger. But people are talking now, you know."

She frowns. "What do they say?"

"It doesn't matter, really. They've got nothing better to do. But tell me why you're so quiet."

"I had a dream last night." Lily waits, so she rolls her eyes and adds on, "About a man."

"A man? Who is he, do I know him? Tell me everything!"

"Be _quiet_… don't tell _anyone_, Lily. My parents don't like it when I talk about my dreams."

"I promise. Tell me."

Alice kneels to pull at a few blades of grass. "There isn't much to tell. I only saw him from behind, as though he were walking through a large crowd and I was following him. He's tall, blonde – a soldier, I think."

"_Ooh_."

She smiles lightly at Lily's interest, but it doesn't reach her eyes. Alice rarely dreams, and when she does, it means something.

That night, she dreams of war and death. When she wakes, she's grasping the sheets with her hands in tight fists. Tears stream down the sides of her face, and she closes her eyes.

The image of a tormented and scarred man with empty, red eyes is burned into her mind.


	2. Doctors

Pixie Dust & Premonitions

Part 2/10

_**Doctors**_

Alice is sitting with her mother and father in an office that seems to be decorated only in browns. Her hands are folded in her lap, and her posture is relaxed. Her face, however, is not.

"I don't find anything wrong with your daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Brandon. As far as I can tell, she's a perfectly normal teenage girl with a simple case of overactive imagination."

"But she _sees_ things, doctor. She -… she has _visions_."

The doctor shakes his head. "I've seen some things I can't explain, ma'am. Your daughter is one of those things."

_A thing_, she thinks. _Is that what I am?_

"You're going to send me away, aren't you?"

Everyone, including the doctor, seems startled when she speaks. Her father frowns. "What are you talking about?"

"You're upset with me, and you're going to send me away."

It's no longer a question. She's seen it.

Her mother ignores her. "Doctor, do you think it could be… well, you know." She lowers her voice, "Witchcraft? I've heard these young girls—"

"You're asking someone in the wrong profession, Mrs. Brandon."

Alice turns her gaze to her mother. "You think I'm doing bad things, mommy?"

"I don't know _what_ you're doing, Mary Alice, but it has to stop. Come on, we're leaving."

Her father simply looks at her with his big brown eyes, and shakes his head. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. Let's go."

* * *

"We can't afford anymore doctors, Mary," she hears her father say one night, when she's supposed to be sleeping. "The four we've already seen say there is _nothing_ wrong with her."

"Then maybe we need to see someone who _isn't_ a doctor. It's not right, Jack, it isn't _natural_. She's stopped going to church all together."

Alice rolls over in her bed and pulls her pillow over her head. She doesn't want to hear anymore.

She lies this way until she's almost asleep. A hand on her shoulder startles her. "Mary Alice?"

Cynthia is standing at her bedside, her hair sticking up at all ends and her stuffed bear in one arm.

"You're supposed to be sleeping, Cynthia."

"So are you."

Alice sighs and makes room as her sister crawls under the sheets with her. "I'm sorry, Cynthia. I know I cause you trouble."

"You don't cause me trouble," she insists. She's lying. Her friends don't talk to her anymore, and when they do, it's only to ask why her sister is so strange. "I don't need friends if I have a sister."

Her statement sends a sharp pain of guilt through Alice. "Everyone needs friends, Cynthia."

Cynthia yawns, and then rests her head on her sister's shoulder. "Not me."

Alice lies awake until the first rays of the rising sun seep through her window, and then she gets out of bed and gets dressed.

It's the first time she stays awake all night.

* * *

"There's someone I want you to see," her mother says a few days later without looking at her. "Mrs. Whitney down the street suggested someone."

Alice sits at the table and replies quietly, "Yes, ma'am."

"Had anymore of those dreams of yours?"

"No, ma'am," she lies, and places her arm over the drawing she brought downstairs with her. The drawing of her soldier.

"Good."

The someone that Mrs. Whitney suggested is not only a doctor, but he studies the human mind. His name is James Matlock, and he says he thinks Alice is the most interesting person he's ever seen.

"Can you see something for me, Mary Alice?"

She's startled. No one had ever asked her to see on command before. "I… don't know. I don't control it."

"Of course you don't," he mumbles, making a note in his little book. Alice glares at him. He looks back up at her, and makes an annoying _hmm_ing noise as he tilts her head from side to side. His fingers are rough, and they hurt her skin. "You're very lovely."

She considers biting him, so he'll get his hand off of her. "Thank you," she says through gritted teeth.

"What happens when you have these… visions?" He says it like the word is poisonous on his tongue.

"I don't understand the question." Frankly, she's bored.

"What are you doing when they happen? Does something trigger them?"

"No." She straightens her skirt, to have something to do with her hands. She hates sitting still. "They come at random times, day or night, rain or shine, awake or asleep."

"And this…?"

Alice's eyes widen as he holds up something that looks strikingly similar to her sketchbook. "Where did you get that? It's _mine_!"

"Your mother. Do you want to tell me who this man is?"

He's flipping through the drawings of her soldier, putting his filthy fingerprints all over them. She's angry now. "He's no one."

"But you draw him so much, and the _details_. Where do you suppose he got those horrible looking scars? Did you make them up?"

She doesn't think they're horrible, and she pokes out her bottom lip. "Yes, I made him up. I made the scars up and I made _him_ up, so can I have them back, please?"

"I think I'll keep them for a while."

Alice bites her tongue to keep from saying anything, and she watches as he puts them away in a draw filled with bread crumbs and old wrappers from sweets. She knows she'll never see them again.


	3. Whispers

Pixie Dust & Premonitions

Part 3/10

_**Whispers**_

By the time she's seventeen, Alice's list of friends has dwindled to just one: Lily. She barely leaves the house, and when she does, she wishes she hadn't. Stares and whispers and the pointing fingers of the neighbors… she can do without all this.

"Just ignore them, Alice. They think they know what's going on, but they don't. Hypocrites, all of them. They claim to live such a religious life. _Ha_! Half of them are cheating on their husbands."

Alice nods, but she hasn't heard a word. She feels like she's on display, something for people to laugh at and mock. Above all, she fears a vision coming to her in public. She doesn't know what happens to her when she has them.

"I thought we could go window shopping. I know neither one of us can afford anything, but…"

"That's fine, Lily," she says. "I'd like that."

They walk along the shops, agreeing and disagreeing about the dresses they like, and Alice longs for enough money to buy a pair of red shoes in one of the windows. She steps forward to look at them closely, but what she sees instead is enough to send her stumbling backwards.

Her own reflection stares at her in the glass, but she's different. She's pale, sickly looking, and her hair looks as though it's been hacked away. What scares her the most are her eyes; they're no longer hazel.

They match those of the soldier she dreams of.

She stumbles backwards, and Lily has to grab her to keep her from going into the street. "Alice? Alice what's _wrong_?"

"I don't… I saw…"

She gasps, and suddenly she's standing in the middle of a battlefield. …No, not a battlefield. A slaughter house.

Bodies litter the ground at her feet, and men with red eyes tear at each other's bodies with their hands and teeth. She cries out, frightened at being in such a place, but no one hears her. After all, she isn't _really_ there.

She stumbles along, her shoe catching on the arm of a limp body, and flinches as a man falls at her feet. It takes her only a moment to recognise him: her soldier. He's on his stomach, and there are several attackers on his back. His left arm is bent back, his hand clawing desperately at them, and his right is beneath him, planted on the ground. He can't stand.

"No!" she calls, "Get off of him!"

As she kneels to help him, the scene around her diminishes.

"Alice? Alice, get _up_, what are you doing?"

She gasps, her hands shaking, her forehead covered in a thin film of sweat. "I… he's hurt… oh, Lily, he'll be killed!"

Lily laughs nervously. "No worries, she's just… she's ill."

Alice looks up. A small group of people have stopped in their tracks, staring down at her. She's on her knees, grasping Lily's arm as though it were a lifeline.

"Get up, Alice," Lily hisses. "Get up, get on your feet, right now."

She stands, but her legs are butter and she sinks to the ground again. "I can't, Lily, I'm sorry."

"_Get up_."

Alice winces as she feels Lily's fingernails digging into the skin of her arms. She's pulled to her feet again, and this time, she manages to stay that way. "Take me home," she whispers. "Please."

"You don't have to ask me twice."

Once she's at home and tucked in bed, Lily comes to say goodbye. "I'll come check on you tomorrow," she says distractedly. "You should stay in bed."

"Lily, I'm so sorry."

"I know. Goodbye, Alice. I'll see you."

The next day, no one comes.

When a week passes, Alice knows: she won't see Lily again.

* * *

"Actually, I thought I'd go by myself."

Alice looks at her sister in the mirror. Her hands pause the work on her hair, and her face falls. "…Oh. How come?"

"Well… Nicky's birthday party… it's just a bunch of younger kids, really. You wouldn't like it."

Looking at her own reflection, Alice purses her lips into a thin line. "Okay."

"I'm sorry."

_No you're not_. "That's okay, Cynthia."

"Maybe we can do something later, you know, just the two of us."

"You mean away from other people?"

Cynthia rubs her forehead. "That isn't what I meant, Alice."

"I know what you meant," she snaps. "Go on, _go_. Tell everyone it's okay to come; your crazy sister won't be there."

"Alice!"

"Just get out."

She winces as Cynthia slams her bedroom door, and then proceeds to rip the pins and ribbons out of her hair. She ignores the sharp pain when she pulls too hair. When she's done, she grabs a cloth and rubs furiously at her mouth. The red that had been painted on her lips now stains the skin around her mouth.

Black trails of thick eyeliner stream down her cheeks.

"I didn't want to go, anyway," she says aloud, sniffing.

When she gives up on trying to fix her appearance, she plops herself onto her bed and pulls out the new sketchpad she got from her father for her birthday.

The only art that graces the pages are images of her soldier.

"Who are you?" she demands. "Why are you doing this to me?"

His empty eyes stare back at her in silence.

Angry with herself and frustrated at not knowing this creature who haunts her dreams, she grits her teeth and, in one swift movement, rips the page in two. She rips it again, and again, until the only thing left is a tiny scrap of paper with a single eye.

She covers her face. "I'm sorry."

Because she has nothing else to do, she silently places all the piece face-up on her bed.

She begins putting it back together.


	4. Demons

Pixie Dust & Premonitions

Part 4/10

_**Demons**_

Exorcism. It's a word Alice has never heard before, but the priest promises it'll make her feel better. It may even make the visions and dreams go away.

"What do you think is wrong with me?" she asks one day when she visits the church with her mother.

"I think," he says, "that maybe you've got an unwanted visitor living inside you."

She wishes people wouldn't speak to her like she's a child. "You think I'm possessed?"

"It's quite possible. We're not meant to see these things. Have you noticed, Mary Alice, that every time you see something, it's always something bad?"

Alice frowns. "No, I never realised that. I guess you could be right."

"Are you agreeing to the exorcism?"

She looks at her mother, who nods her head, her eyes full of warning: agree, or else. "Yes, I am."

Later, she'll wonder why she didn't see herself making one of the biggest mistakes of her life.

"Now, you may experience some pain –"

"Are those restraints necessary?" her father asks, peering over the reverends shoulder. "Clearly, she can't do much physical damage."

"You'd be surprised, Mr. Brandon."

Alice stares at her mother, wide-eyed. "Are you sure this is gonna work, mama?"

"Yes."

Her father shakes his head and covers his face. "I don't like this."

Neither does Alice.

* * *

When she wakes, she wonders why she feels no different. "What happened?"

"You kept screaming for someone to help you," her father says, "and that you were going to be killed."

Alice pokes her lip out. "Oh." She doesn't remember this, and she wonders if she had a vision. "Anything else?"

"No," her mother says, sounding annoyed at the fact. "He doesn't think you're possessed, because nothing happened. You just kept talking about some man that you had to find, and that someone was after you."

"I'm sorry."

Her father pats her hand. "It isn't your fault, sweetheart."

_Why do I feel this way, then_?

The next day, she goes to church alone. It's empty when she arrives, and she sits in the front pew, staring up at the crucifix behind the podium. "What am I doing wrong?" she wonders aloud. "Have I done something? Is this punishment?"

She's always been taught that if she's a good girl and minds her elders and goes to church that she'd be just fine.

Why, then, was she suffering this way?

"Who's the man in my dreams?" she demands. "Is he punishment, too?" She thinks of his crimson eyes. "Is he some demon sent to taunt me? Why won't you—"

She gasps quietly, and her fingers curl around the arm of the pew.

Her soldier is in front of her, and it's only him. There's nothing around them – no up, no down, no darkness and no light. It's as if they're standing out in empty space. Then, she sees herself: her hair is short, her skin is pale, and she's wearing something strange - a fashion she's never seen before.

She watches herself reach out to him, and she watches him take her hand and smile.

"Mary Alice?"

She blinks rapidly, her eyes burning as she stares up at the crucifix that's suddenly reappeared in front of her. "Yes?"

"It's good to see you here again. Are you praying before you go?"

"Go?"

"They haven't told you, then."

Alice tenses. "Told me what, Father…?"

"Oh, Alice… there's nothing more they can do for you, other than the hospital."

Her thoughts snap back to the conversation she had with her mother during the visit to her very first doctor.

_You're going to send me away, aren't you_?

She jumps up from the pew, grabbing her clutch purse and sprints down the isle.

"Mary Alice, wait!'

Alice ignores him, and pushes the doors of the church open violently. She runs out into the rain without a second thought. Where she's going, she doesn't know.

_Why is this happening to me_?

She runs as fast as her legs will carry her, letting them lead her. She realises that she's going home – she's running to the very people who will turn their backs on her. Why?

When she arrives, she runs straight up onto the porch and through the front door. "I'm so sorry," she sobs as she throws herself into her father's arms.

He's startled, and panicked. "What's the matter, darling? What's got you in such a state?"

"I'm not a good daughter at all, am I? I'm sorry, I really tried, daddy. I _tried_ to ignore them; I tried to pretend they weren't happening anymore. I'm _sorry_. "

"Oh, Alice…" he sighs and runs his hand through her rain-soaked hair."I should be apologising to you."

But he doesn't. He never does.


	5. Everyone Leaves

Pixie Dust & Premonitions

Part 5/10

_**Everyone Leaves...**_

The last time Alice sees her parents, she's peering at them through a barred window.

"This is for your own good, Alice," her mother says.

She doesn't believe her. "I know, mama."

"I can't believe we're doing this," her father's worried voice says. She can't see him; the window's too small. "I'm so sorry, Mary Alice. We love you."

"I love you, too, daddy. Can I see you?"

Her mother's face disappears from the windows, and her father's takes its place. His eyes are s sunken in and bloodshot. He's been crying. "Hi, sweetheart."

"Hi, daddy." She pokes her fingers through the bars and pats the whiskers on his face gently. "You haven't shaved."

"No," he says. "There are more important things."

"Don't cry, daddy. Please? I'll be okay, they're gonna fix me."

She thinks she hears him grumble something that sounds like, "I doubt that," but he nods his head, anyway. "I'll see you soon, sweetheart."

"Is Cynthia here?"

"No," her mother says, her face replacing her father's in the window. "She didn't want to come to this place."

Alice frowns. "Not even to say goodbye?"

"We have to go."

"Mama, wait… when will I see you?"

"I don't know, Mary Alice. Goodbye."

Alice watches them through the tiny window until she can't see them anymore. In her heart, she knows her mother's true answer: _You won't._

* * *

She's strapped to a bed, with a large metal machine over her head. "This will hurt," they tell her, and there is no emotion in their voices.

"What are you going to do?" she asks, her voice trembling.

She watches in the shiny reflective surface of the machine as they attach wires to her head with sticky white patches. Her hair is gone, and she cried when they shaved it off.

"Just some tests," one of the men says. "Try not to move too much."

"Okay."

Alice closes her eyes and waits.

The sensation she feels next causes a shrill, involuntary scream to escape her mouth. It feels as though her entire head has been shoved into an electrical socket, and the waves of current are racing from the top of her body to her toes.

She screams again and again, and it feels like hours before she's panting for air with the wires removed from her head.

They tell her it's for her own good.

By the time her first week in the hospital ends, she's been put on medications for insomnia and another disease she can't remember – something that began with an "_s_."

"Schizophrenia," the nurse says when she asks, and shoves the pills at her. "Swallow, and open up."

Alice is used to this routine already. She takes the little cup with the water, swallows the pills one by one – they're too large for her to take all together – and then opens her mouth wide.

"_Ahh_."

"Alright. _Next!_"

Alice makes her way from here to the recreation room; she likes it there, and she thinks she's made a friend. "Is Gemma here yet?"

The supervisor checks the log-in sheet. "Not yet, honey, but your drawing station is up."

Alice watches at her name is written on the paper, and then she makes her way across the room to a stool in front of a large art pad. She decides she'll paint whatever she sees outside the window today.

They won't let her paint her soldier.

In the follow weeks, they make her sit through the electric shocks of the big metal machine once every four days. She also has to speak with a therapist, who asks her about her dreams and visions.

"And the blonde man? Have you seen him anymore?"

Alice shakes her head and answers truthfully. "No."

"The supervisor in the recreational room said you tried to draw him yesterday. Why?"

"I think he's quite beautiful."

The therapist frowns. "You said you haven't seen him anymore."

"I haven't, but I still remember what he looks like. I'm sorry, I won't draw him anymore."

She's released from the therapist two hours later, and she's walked to lunch by another supervisor who makes sure that she eats. After this, she's allowed outside until four in the evening, and then she has to take her medicine again.

Dinner is at five, and she sits alone, again, listening to people around her chatter.

She learns from other patients that Gemma has committed suicide.


	6. Numb

Pixie Dust & Premonitions

Part 6/10

_**Numb**_

On her nineteenth birthday, her fellow patients get permission from the hospital staff to make her a cake. She cries, because it's the first time she's celebrated without her family, and when she makes her wish it's only to see her family again. Or her soldier.

She takes her medicine three times a day now. They've stopped shaving her hair off when it grows back, but it doesn't seem to be getting any longer.

The Thursday after her birthday, she has to see the therapist again because she tried to draw _him_ again.

"It's just a _sketch_," she insists. "I can't even _draw_ anymore?!"

"Why do you insist on doing these things to yourself, Mary?"

"My name is _Alice_."

"That's your _middle_ name."

She tangles her fingers in her short hair and pulls. "What do you people want from me?! I want to draw, and I want to be called _Alice_!"

They send her to solitary confinement when she tries to snatch her sketches away from the therapist, and accidentally scratches the woman's face instead.

She's in there for three days, and the only communication she has with anyone is when the nurse pokes her medication through the slot in the door and when the worker from the cafeteria nudges her food through.

She never eats it.

When they let her out, the physician is not pleased to see that she's lost three pounds in as many days. "You're not eating, Mary."

"_Alice_," she insists. "And I don't eat when I'm not hungry."

"If you don't eat, we'll have to make you."

And they do. They sit her in a room with a supervisor and a therapist, and they won't let her leave until at least half of her plate is gone. Worse – they make her eat her carrots.

* * *

There's a man at the hospital that Alice thinks is a little strange. He's a supervisor on the night shift there, and unlike the rest, he talks to her. He sits, and he chats with her – at lunch, during recreational time, at dinner. He even comes and visits her when she's being punished and kept in solitary.

Today, he sits by her while she paints. He promises he won't tell anyone that she's painting _him_ again.

"You dream of this man?"

"I used to," she explains. "Not anymore."

"His eyes," the supervisor says with genuine interest. "Do they frighten you?"

Alice thinks about this. "When I first dreamed of him, yes. The more I saw him, though, the more I knew how empty they were. They're sad, not vicious."

"If you say so," the supervisor chuckles, "but they look like the eyes of the devil to me."

She shakes her head. "No. Not him."

She gains five pounds in the following two weeks, and she's rewarded: she can go outside again. She likes it outside, but today she isn't sure if she wants to be out there.

She's been sitting on a bench watching the woods across the street from the hospital, and she thinks she sees something there.

She goes back inside after only fifteen minutes.

That night, Alice dreams for the first time in what feels like _forever_. Her soldier, however, does not grace her with his presence. She saw herself, only herself, running through trees. She hid from security guards. She saw herself on the ground outside, shivering, bleeding and left for dead.

Above her, a pair of furious red eyes peered down from the darkness.

They were not empty and sad like _his_. They were angry.

They were _hungry_.


	7. Freedom

Pixie Dust & Premonitions

Part 7/10

_**Freedom**_

Mary Alice Brandon always assumed she'd live a long, productive life. She'd grow up and get married and have two or three children. She would die a happy, old woman with lots of grandkids.

Not a nineteen year old girl in a mental ward.

She doesn't see her death coming, because she doesn't remember her dreams of it. She only knows that something – _something – _is wrong. The nice supervisor is hanging around her more and more often these days.

"Be inside before twilight," he tells her. "It's not safe for you to be outdoors after then."

When she asks why, he just tells her to mind what he says. She thinks it isn't fair that everyone else gets to stay out until seven, but she doesn't argue.

She goes out after lunch, and when the shadows on the ground begin to deepen and darken, she goes inside to draw. She's learned to doodle small things now: butterflies, trees, flowers. Someone was constantly watching her, and if she drew anyone or anything even _hinted_ of her soldier or his uniform, she was in trouble again.

She waited until she was in her room again to draw him, because she stole some paper and a pencil from the recreation room. Tonight, she's hiding under her blanket with her half-finished sketch positioned in a tiny match of moonlight that shines through the window and onto the bed.

She draws him smiling this time; she's never seen him this way, but she likes the way it looks. She adds more scars to his jaw – the last time she saw him, he looked as though he'd been in a few more altercations.

She decides that she likes his scars, no matter if they look frightening or distasteful to anyone else. She often wonders, though, where he got them and why there are so oddly shaped.

Frowning as a shadow passes over her paper, she waits for it to pass. Every few minutes, a cloud would pass over the moon and, like now, she'd have to pause and wait.

This time, though, the shadow does not go away.

Alice sighs and, sliding the sketch and pencil under her pillow, she peeps out from the blanket.

Everyone in the hall wakes a few moments later to screams from room sixteen.

* * *

"_No one_ was outside."

Alice is curled up in the chair across the desk from the therapist. A security officer and a physician accompany them. "But I _saw_ him!"

She _had_. He was standing there, glaring at her through the window. His eyes were as red as the blood being drawn for testing from her arm.

"He was standing there, watching me. I _saw_ him!"

The physician kneels in front of her and shoves four pills in her hand.

"Wh-… I don't _need _these, I'm fine! He's out there, I'm telling you, and I saw him!"

She knocks the pills out of the doctor's hand. A mistake.

They're violent with her, and they try to make her comply with their orders by putting their hands around her neck and over her forehead. She screams, she kicks and she cries. She won't go with them, she says, not back to _that_ room.

She doesn't have a choice.

The big metal machine with the wires is her punishment. It lasts all night, and when it's over, someone carries her to solitary because she can't stand on her own two feet. She mumbles, and tries to ask them if they found the man with the red eyes, but her tongue feels too heavy to move.

Her only visitor is the friendly supervisor, who somehow manages to open the door and get inside.

"I'm sorry, Alice, my dear," he whispers.

She tries to ask what he's apologising for, but the only thing that comes out is, "Wha?"

"You can't stay here anymore. You were right, Alice, about the man. He is out there, and he's looking for you. The man with the red eyes, Alice, the one in your window. He wants you. He won't stop until he has you."

_No_. "Nuh…"

"I won't let him hurt you. I promise. Do you believe me?"

She nods her head because she's tired of trying to form words. She can't even sit up anymore, so he places his hands – _so _icy cold – on her arms and pulls her into a sitting position.

"I'm going to take you away, Alice. I'm taking you away from here."

She likes the sound of this, and tries to hold on when he lifts her off the floor. His grip is strong, almost painful. When they hit the cold night air, though, she's grateful for him and tries to hide her face in his coat.

It seems like only seconds before he's setting her back down. "This is it, Alice," he whispers. "You're free after this…"

Alice looks at him through heavily-lidded, drugged eyes.

She notices for the first time that his irises are not dark brown, like she first thought.

They're a deep, deep crimson.


	8. New

Pixie Dust & Premonitions

Part 8/10

_**New**_

Alice wakes to the feel of rain on her skin, mud beneath her face and the sensation that she's been dropped into a lake of liquid fire. She screams, loudly, and pulls herself to her knees. Tangling her fingers in her short, wet hair, she gasps and crawls – somewhere, anywhere.

Her breaths come in short and a shallow, and her chest and throat burn with intensity.

"Help me!" she croaks, though she knows no one will hear her.

She feels as though her head is being ripped apart.

_Where am I? Why am I alone? Why am I in this gown?_

She hears dogs barking in the distance, men shouting, and her first and only instinct is to run. She does, and she's _fast_. Trees fly by her at such a speed that she barely has time to register where they are.

She stops short, her arms extended in front of her, her hands feeling at the air. She can't see anymore.

_What's going on_?

She gasps.

She's in a bright room with large windows, and as her eyes scan the room, she sees herself sitting in a desk chair.

She's wearing a fancy black dress, and her make up looks nice. Her expression is blank. The blonde man in front of her, in dark denim and a deep green shirt, is watching her with a concerned look.

"Alice," he says, kneeling. "What are you seeing?"

Just before her vision fades, she sees herself wake and say a single word: _Jasper._

She's in the forest again, staring at her trembling hands. The loud sound of yapping search dogs snaps her back to her senses, and she continues running. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment; the pounding her head is so intense that it's making her nauseous.

"Hold it!"

She stops short. A man is in front of her, a dog at his side, and a pistol in his hand. "Just hold it _right_ there. It's back to the ward for you."

_Ward?_

"Don't even think about running. You can't get away."

_I'll bet you for it_.

As soon as she thinks the words, a flash of images race through her mind. It takes her a moment to figure out what's going on: she's seeing various escape routes out of her situation.

Her eyes dart back and forth, up and down. From the man to the dog, the tree to her left, the small stream of rushing water to her right. Before she can settle her mind on a specific choice, her feet are moving again. Running.

"Stop!" The man yells.

She hears the footsteps of the dog just inches behind her heels, hears its teeth snapping at her ankles.

Without considering her actions, she stops and turns. Her right hand closes around the dog's neck, and its threatening growl becomes a high pitched whine.

_Kill it_, a voice in her mind says. _You could_.

"No," she hisses. "I won't."

Her grip loosens just enough, and the animal scrambles away. A smart creature.

"Got you."

Alice freezes, feeling the cold metal barrel of a weapon at her temple. She'd been too occupied with her struggle on what to do with the dog that someone had snuck up on her.

"Now, come quietly. I won't lose my job because I let one, teensy little girl get away."

Her lip curls. She's not a little girl.

There's a pounding sound in her head again, but this time, it doesn't hurt. She tilts her head to one side and listens, and as she comes to realisation, her mouth begins to water incessantly.

It's the man's heartbeat.

She doesn't remember her next actions, and by the time she comes to her senses and finds her hands covered in blood, she's in the middle of a deserted street with nothing but a long, empty road to her left and the bright lights of a city to her right.

She wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand, and then wipes her hands on her torn and muddy gown.

She sees herself making the decision to go towards the lights.

* * *

She's grateful that the town is deserted when she reaches it. She doesn't really know what she's doing here; she's only following gut instinct. She finds a closed bakery, a school, a grocery store and a boutique.

She stops at the window to admire a simple pink dress, with a square neckline and a knee-length hymn. Smiling, she places a bloody palm on the glass. _I want this_.

She doesn't remember breaking the glass with her fist and climbing through into the store, but she's in the bathroom now, scrubbing at the dried blood between her fingers and on her face.

She avoids looking at her reflection too much: her eyes frighten her.

When she's satisfied with her appearance, she slips the dress over her head and turns once to admire it as best as she can in the small mirror.

In the store, Alice finds a bag. She uses it to store two pairs of trousers, three or four nice blouses and two pairs of shoes. She also uses some of the hair products there to do something about hers.

It's too short to do much, but she finds that if she spikes it up around the back and lets her fringe dangle near her face it looks quite nice. She decides it looks better with a pearly headband.

She feels bad about not paying for the clothes, so she finds some receipt paper and a pen near the register and leaves a note: _Sorry. Needed them. Only took a few. Thank you._

With that, she hurries out of the store. While she was writing, she had a vision of the Statue of Liberty.


	9. Wanderer

Pixie Dust & Premonitions

Part 9/10

_**Wanderer**_

New York and Los Angeles. Paris and Munich. Moscow. London and Glasgow. Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney.

Alice – yes, she decided with help from her visions that _Alice_ was her name – has been to all of these places now. She researched in Europe, and she even met others like her. She didn't like them.

She travels by guidance of her dreams, and they are frequent. She watches a family now, a family with beautiful golden eyes. It's from them that she learned long ago; animals will soothe that terrible burn in the back of her throat. Humans are no longer in danger of her, though she still finds it difficult to resist one who smells particularly pleasing.

It's 1943, New Year's Eve. She's in Washington, D.C. now, and she isn't quite certain how she got here.

"Are you lost?"

Alice blinks at the harsh, male voice. "No."

"You look lost."

She turns her nose up at him. "I'm not."

"Feisty little devil, aren't you?"

Alice taps her foot on the ground. "Just very easily annoyed." As if it'll help, she lifts her nose even higher. He even _smells_ bad.

When he touches her shoulder, she scrambles backwards a few steps. No one had ever laid a hand on her, as far as she could remember. In fact, the only person she ever _saw_ touching her in any way was the tall blonde man in her visions.

Her future with him, she knew, was certain.

Jasper.

"Don't touch me."

"Don't be like that," the man whines. "It's New Year's Eve and a lovely girl like you shouldn't spend the night alone."

She sniffs affectedly. "My husband is waiting for me."

"I don't see a ring."

_That's because I haven't got it yet_. "I don't need a ring to be taken. Goodbye, now."

"Look, honey, I ain't runnin' off that easily and _– ow are you fucking insane?!_"

She's digging her fingers into the soft flesh of his skin, where his hip meets his body. Her lip is curled up, and her golden eyes are furious. "I said _goodbye, now_."

"Alright!" he squeaks. "Fine, just let go!"

She does, and he limps away quickly. She glares at him when he looks over his shoulder at her. "And watch your language from now on!"

* * *

It's been six months since she's had a vision. She's made her way to Virginia now, and she's wandering aimlessly. "Come on," she whispers to the ceiling one night as she lies in a room of abandoned hotel. "Come back to me."

There's nothing. Sighing, she grabs a bottle of water and a toothbrush.

She'd seen humans doing it when she spied on them, and she thinks the minty taste is quiet nice. She finds her toothpaste and, after her brushing, she splashes some of the water on her face. She's seen them do this, too.

Unfortunately, she's also seen them have meals. That was one thing she couldn't do. She tried once, with a piece of bread wrapped around a sausage – a strange delicacy she found somewhere in Europe. It weighed heavily in her stomach and made her feel ill. This feeling didn't go away until she forced the food to come back up.

She decided that wasn't very pleasant at all.

Still, she can brush her teeth, and read, and bathe and watch the television. Once, she snuck up on a class full of young girls learning to dance.

She thinks she'd like to be a ballerina.

"I can't do anything until I find him," she said allowed. "And until we find _them_. Where are you, Jasper, why can't I see you?"

On multiple occasions, she tries to force the vision. This only hurts her head, so she gives up. Curling up on the squeaky old bed in the hotel room, she squeezes her eyes closed.

She can't sleep but, if she tries hard enough, she can tune out the noises of the city.

She _can_ rest.

Then, it happens. She sees him, lying in a field, looking up at the sky peacefully. She wonders if this is what he's doing now, or what he'll do in a few moments. It's hard to tell when she has no idea of his actual location.

"Goodnight, Jasper," she whispers. Something she'd heard humans say. "Wherever you are."

Then, she adds silently: _I love you_.


	10. Waiting

Pixie Dust & Premonitions

Part 10/10

_**Waiting**_

It's September, and Alice has not received any more visions to hint at Jasper's (or the Cullen's') whereabouts. She's been to Canada, the Caribbean and Alaska. When she shows someone a drawing of him near Alabama, she gets discouraged because no one says he looks familiar.

_Of course he doesn't_, she realises later. _He'll only travel at night… even if it is overcast during the day_.

Though Alice has discovered going out when it's cloudy is okay for day travel, she guesses that Jasper has not. She knows from her visions that he has a heavy southern drawl, so she decides to concentrate her search in the lower states. She won't give up, she's decided, not until she finds him.

And she _will _find him.

It snows when she goes to Georgia, and she decides she likes this weather. It paints everything white, and people seem to be in a better mood. Unless their vehicles are stuck. She stays here for three weeks, keeping her eyes peeled for tall, blonde men.

They're bountiful, but none are who she's looking for.

Mississippi, Texas and New Mexico provide her with no luck, either.

Often, Alice is mistaken for a lost child when she tries to speak with someone. It irritates her. _Haven't they ever seen a short person before_?

When she reaches the border of California, she decides to turn back. She doesn't think he'll be there.

She's in New Orleans when it happens. One moment, she's lying in the loft of an empty barn, and the next she's standing in the middle of a half-empty diner. And _he's_ there.

_"You've kept me waiting_," she hears her own voice say.

But where is she? She's seen millions of diners like this before. Peering over her own shoulder, she squints at the articles on the wall behind the counter.

_"I'm sorry, ma'am_."

A newspaper. It's hard for her to see small items clearly in these visions, and she prays silently for it to last just a little longer.

Just long enough. She's snapped back to reality, but by the time she opens her eyes again, she's already out of the loft and halfway out of the barn.

She'd seen the first page of the newspaper pinned on the wall, and that was all she needed.

_Philadelphia_.

* * *

It's sunny when she arrives, so she has to wait until night falls to begin her search for diners that match the description of her visions. The weather is also discouraging; it was raining in her vision.

All her predictions pointed to fair weather in the near future.

Still, she won't let her hopes fall. Jasper had made some kind of choice, she thinks, one that would lead him straight to her. She's never felt that certain about a vision before. It's so sure that she can almost feel his presence.

Four days pass, and still the sun shines bright. She's growing irritated now, and thirsty. She isn't allowing herself to hunt very often for fear that she'll miss her chance to find him. She's come too far for that.

Her spirits are lifted when it begins to rain on the sixth day.

On the seventh day, a storm comes in and on the eighth, she finds a place she recognises. The little bell on the door, the yellow "Welcome" sign painted in the window…

She pushes the door open, and if her heart were beating, it would've leapt right out of her chest. The newspaper behind the counter is the first thing that catches her eye.

This is the diner. This is the place where she will find her companion.

"Can I help you, sweetie?" one of the waitresses asks when Alice takes a seat on a stool at the counter.

Alice frowns and takes a quick glance at the other customers. She tries to recall what the brown liquid is that smelled so nice. "Do you have…sweet tea?"

"You want it hot, or cold?"

She pokes out her bottom lip. "Surprise me?" She's heard this response before, and she thinks it must be appropriate when the waitress disappears down the counter.

A few moments later, a small, steaming white cup is placed in front of her. "You look like you could use some warmin' up."

Alice wraps her hands around the cup, and the warmth sends chills up her arms. She brings it to her lips and holds it there for a moment, pretending to sip.

"Thank you."

Minutes become hours, and before long, night has come with more rain. "When do you close," Alice asks the waitress behind the counter.

"We stay open twenty-four hours, honey. I'll be leaving here shortly, though. …How long are you planning on sitting there?"

Alice frowns. "I don't know."

"You waiting on somebody?"

"You could say that."

"A man?"

"Sort of."

The waitress clicked her tongue and shook her head. "Well, shame on him for making you wait."

Alice smiles and nods. She doesn't know how to tell the waitress that he doesn't quite know that he's even coming.

Still, she will wait. As long as it takes, she'll sit on that stool and wait to hear the tinkle of the doorbell. She'll wait for the hour that brings him to her.

She has all the time in the world.


End file.
